Dave's Bahamas Trip

My flight out to Miami was with Virgin Atlantic on a Boeing 747, I was surprised at how cramped it was but the service and entertainment provided by Virgin was great, so that made the flight quite comfortable and I also ended up getting 4 seats to myself which was a nice treat. We then landed on time in Miami and caught our connecting flight to Nassau with Bahamas Air.

We arrived at the Sandals Royal Bahamian late but managed to leave our bags in the room and then sampled the food in the Cricketers Pub which was appetising and plentiful. I was disappointed that my room didn’t have a balcony and I would definitely advise clients to pay the extra for a room with one. The next morning we met for breakfast and had a massive choice to choose from, and then started our orientation of the resort. The resort wasn’t that big so it was easy to get around and it had 2 great pools, one being quieter than the other. I was slightly disappointed on the size of the rooms, although they were very nice I would of expected them to be bigger, especially the suites. We were then treated with a boat ride over to their private island, we took a swim and had lunch which was excellent. That evening we had our dinner in the Kimonos Tepinyaki restaurant which was a fun filled evening with brilliant food being cooked in front of us.

The next morning we woke up early for our 6.30am flight from Nassau to Great Exuma with Bahamas Air, it was tiny little plane but the views from the flight were amazing, being able to see the tiny islands and clear blue sea. The airport here is tiny and we collected our luggage from a tractor instead of the normal conveyor belt. On arrival at the Sandals Emerald Bay we were greeted with champagne and straight away just looking around at the reception and through the doors out to the pool and ocean I just knew this resort was going to be amazing! We were shown to our rooms and I was allocated a Bay House One Bedroom Butler Suite , the room was massive and very luxurious with 2 bathrooms, 2 flat screen TV’s and a full mini bar and optics which were all part of the All-inclusive package. The resort was quite large but easy to get about, there were plenty of restaurants and bars to choose from which were all fantastic and we spent most nights in the Drunken Duck pub which stayed open till late.

The best experience of the whole trip was the full day Exuma Cays Ocean Safari which we did from Sandals Emerald Bay, we snorkelled, swam with Sea Pigs and visited a deserted island full of the endangered Bahamian Iguana, this is a day I’ll never forget and remember for the rest of my life.

The journey home was a long one but we had some spare time in Miami to go to a mall to pick up some gifts which broke up the flight. We then flew back with Virgin again on a packed A330 but this aircraft was much more comfortable than the Boeing 747.

Without a doubt Sandals Emerald Bay was far superior than the Royal Bahamian and even though it’s an extra flight I would highly recommend Great Exuma to anyone. It has a much more Caribbean feel rather than the high rise properties of Nassau and is a beautiful resort.